The History Of The Electoral College
In order to understand the invention of the Electoral College we need to know the circumstances under which it was created. The Founding Fathers faced the difficulty of how to elect a president in a newly formed nation that: was comprised of 13 states of varying sizes each with their own laws and powers that feared a powerful central government, consisted of only four million citizens spread over more than a thousand miles of the Atlantic Coast with very little transportation or communication, felt believed that political parties were evil and mischievous, and believed that gentlemen were not to campaign for public office.
The Constitution Convention considered several methods of electing a president. Eventually the members of the convention decided on an indirect election of the president through a College of Electors. The idea was similar to how the Roman College of Cardinals elects the Pope. The most informed and knowledgeable individuals would select the president based on merit and not based on what state he was from or political party he was in.
The formation of the Electoral College can be found in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution. The states were given a set amount of Electors based on the number of U.S. Representatives plus the 2 (for the number of U.S. Senators from each state). The number of Electors would change over time based on the population of the states. The method of deciding each state"s Electors was left to the individual states to decide.
The person with the most electoral votes would win the Presidency provided that had at least one vote more than half of the possible votes. Originally the person with the second most votes became the Vice President. If not one received a majority of the Electoral votes the U.S. House of Representatives voted to determine the President. Rather than the normal method of each individual Congressman voting, the States each had one vote. The winner would need an absolute majority of the States. The runner up would become the Vice President. If the vote in the House was still a tie then the U.S. Senate would vote to determine the President. This first version of the Electoral College survived for four elections before it was altered.
This article was written by Brandon Plett, creator and owner of http://www.theelectionguide.com Visit us for complete coverage of the 2008 U.S. Presidential
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